


and i won't be back till next year

by temporaryforce



Category: Generation Kill, Justified
Genre: Don't Ask Don't Tell, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 10:33:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2769806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporaryforce/pseuds/temporaryforce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“Fuck, seriously? I’m going to show up at your place while you’re gone one of these days, do some recon on your kitchen sink.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Have fun,” Timothy says dryly. “And remember that anyone who’s dating me is guaranteed to be as big of an asshole as I am.”</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	and i won't be back till next year

**Author's Note:**

> [macdowell](http://archiveofourown.org/users/macdowell) — I really, truly hope this was something close to what you were looking for with your second prompt! I enjoyed the hell out of writing it, and I’m likely to come back to this ‘verse at some point in the future, so thank you for the inspiration.
> 
> &&& THANK YOU FOREVER to [HanaXans](http://archiveofourown.org/users/HanaXans) ([hxans](http://hxans.tumblr.com) on tumblr) for a speedy last-minute beta via google docs! ♡
> 
> Title from “Papa Was a Rodeo” by the Magnetic Fields, which is gorgeous and melancholy and perfect and you can listen to it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fllQTBPDalk).
> 
> Obligatory GK content warning. Nothing too noteworthy, though this is a story about a character who is closeted specifically because of DADT.
> 
> (Disclaimer and other notes at the end.)

_Iraq, March 2003_

 

“This is like fuckin’ kindergarten,” Person says, staring over at Doc. He’s perched on a couple of overturned crates, his right foot propped up, pale and dead-looking aside from a sluggishly bleeding swath of skin down the side. “I’m getting massive, massive déjà vu here, dude.”

Doc doesn’t even bother rolling his eyes. “Not sure I want to know what kind of fucked up kindergarten you went to,” he says, his voice dry just as much from his throat as it is in tone. He lets out a brief sigh that seems to rattle for a moment before escaping into the air. “Yeah, I can clean this up. You’re fine, Person. Same as every other poor unfortunate fuck out here with his sweaty-ass feet jammed in his boots all day. What, did you contract foot fungus at the tender age of five?”

“You’re sounding a bit down about this whole issue, you know,” Person says, faux concern pinching his eyebrows together and up. “I mean, I know this has gotta suck, givin’ foot rubs to dirty Marines in addition to all the blown up villages’n’shit, but me, I’m just a ray of sunshine these days, Doc. You should take advantage of that.”

Doc barely spares him a glance. “You’re high,” he says neutrally, and sets to work clearing away blood and dead skin from the side of Person’s foot.

There’s a short pause. “Really? I hadn’t noticed,” Person says. One of his dimples is showing.

Doc does roll his eyes, now. Very slightly. The circles under his eyes are so dark he might as well have painted them on himself. “It’s the only rational explanation for why you’d think that was an appealing offer to make.”

Person snorts. “Bro. Bro, you sound like _Brad_.”

Doc doesn’t get a chance to respond. “That’s Sergeant Colbert to you, Person,” Colbert says, and his tone is cheerier than it’s been in days, the asshole. He walks on by, arms swinging like he isn’t running on about two hours of sleep. “And please do refrain from propositioning the good doctor in broad daylight,” he tosses over his shoulder. “It’s bad for morale.”

Doc watches Person watch Colbert walk over to Garza. “What’s bad for morale?” Garza asks, but Colbert’s reply gets swallowed up in the surrounding activity.

Person’s face is absent as he watches, appreciative, too fucking fearless. Doc’s seen him looking sideways at the LT sometimes, too: not even in the fond, familiar way he looks at Colbert, but something more lingering and speculative, a flicker of eyelashes and then warm dark eyes half-open like he’s trying to be goddamn subtle about looking at the LT’s mouth.

Maybe he is. Maybe it’s just Doc who notices because there’s a warm dark part of _him_ that he tucks neatly under a ready supply of coarse, driving anger. It’s the lone corner piece of a jigsaw puzzle that aches to fit alongside something unnamed, every time he sees Reyes drape an arm around Pappy’s waist; or Person staring almost dreamily at Fick’s retreating back, or even, fuck, wrestling to try and get his Elvis sunglasses onto Colbert’s face for “just a minute, Brad, come _on!_ ” as Colbert half-assedly fends him off while dutifully ingesting an MRE.

It’s a puzzle piece that’s always trying to reach out and click with _something_ , and maybe that’s why he notices.

It’s better, at any rate, than the brief, dizzy moments when he tries to catch some shut-eye and feels Tim’s palm ghosting along the back of his neck, fingers touching his mouth. Better than that time he saw the angle of Stafford’s jaw out of the corner of his eye and flinched, running hot for a moment, because it reminded him of Tim the morning he’d left for this deployment.

(The sky had still been dark, and he was in Tim’s parked car with him. There was a pungent current of _fear_ piercing the anger he was already trying to bury all that _warm-dark-sure-soft_ under, and it was fucking everything up. He kept looking over and getting glances of Tim’s soft hair and set mouth and the crease between his eyebrows, lit by the faint mingling light from outside — and then one of them had moved, and then the other; and they were kissing, hard, like they were dying, mouths soft and desperate, moving down to necks and —)

In any case: Doc got out here, got to Iraq, and stopped being fucking afraid, because he’s got hell-spawned incompetence and shot children and several pairs of rotting feet to deal with. End of fucking story. If he carried a fucking picture or letters on him, like Reporter or Hasser, maybe he’d start carrying around the same constant, nauseating unease he’d been able to bury once he found out he had no trouble making it through Navy boot camp without popping a boner in the icy showers.

He’s done getting some light bandages on Person’s foot by the time that last thought is halfway over. “Right,” he says. “You’re good. You can scram.”

Person does not scram. He grabs his boot and makes a fair production of putting it on, but stands up when Doc does. “Thanks, Doc,” he says. “Oh, and it wasn’t foot fungus when I was five. Mostly it was just that this cute girl touched me, and I got cooties and insisted on being sent to the nurse’s office.”

Doc leaves.

 

_Stateside, 2001_

 

Timothy meets Tim Gutterson through a mutual friend while Tim is still in the military. Tim swiftly proceeds to piss Timothy the hell off every time the two of them have a conversation.

Timothy feels _off_ every time he looks at Tim, like there’s something about him that doesn’t quite fit. Tim argues with Timothy for the sake of it, sharp and almost playful, and keeps coming back even when Timothy doesn’t play nice. That’s probably the first reason Timothy starts to like him, a few days after they meet.

But there’s something that tugs at Timothy’s gut, a steady unsettling pull. It’s fed often by Tim’s unshakable flirtatiousness, his gaze sliding to Timothy’s mouth even as he says _You ain’t the biggest fuckin’ asshole I’ve met all year, but it’s a close thing_. Smiling. There’s a soft curl to his mouth.

Timothy would very much like to touch that mouth. That bothers him. He’s rusty at it — feeling bothered in this way: he got used to the absence of it in college, the absence of that coiling rush of guilt and paranoia that makes itself so clear now.

It’s some small comfort, then, that he recognizes the reservation in Tim’s flirting. Tim’s hands are warm and steady, and his eyes are warm but by no means lingering. Timothy knows it means that he won’t try anything.

The night before Tim’s leave ends, he swings by Timothy’s apartment with a case of beer and a case of energy drinks.

“Monster’s mine,” he says, by way of explanation. “Flying out tomorrow.”

Timothy raises an eyebrow. “Not bothering to get some rest?”

Tim grins. “You gonna let me in or not?”

Timothy does.

It’s easy to switch from arguing to talking about military shit; and from that to talking about school shit; and from that to Tim saying, “Shut the fuck up, I am _tryin’_ to imagine you teaching a class of five-year-olds,” and then cocking his head and staring at Timothy in a way that makes Timothy close his mouth on his words.

 _Now_ Tim’s eyes are lingering, and liquid-warm and too bright, and his hands are shaking almost imperceptibly.

It could just be the energy drinks, Timothy thinks. He’s staring back at Tim. He knows his face is flushed a little, from the alcohol, and for a moment he feels like he’s twenty years old at a college party: where he _knows_ that a man is hitting on him, but he’s not quite sure what to do about it yet.

The moment passes, thankfully. Tim keeps staring. Timothy stares on back. The quiet is half oppressive, half anticipatory, charged with half-lidded chin-tilted signals that feel like a lost second language to Timothy.

A Dumpster lid clatters somewhere outside, and Tim breaks eye contact. His hands are steady again when he picks up his — third? Fourth? — half-empty can of Monster. Timothy watches his throat as he swallows it down.

They don’t talk much, then, and it takes Timothy a flat three minutes to fall asleep. Beer does that to him, often. The soft glow of the table lamp standing next to the couch does little to delay it.

It’s when he wakes up that he realizes he’s screwed.

The dawn is streaked pink and orange and gold outside the window, but somehow it feels darker than it did when Timothy drifted off to sleep. He looks up.

Tim is seated on a kitchen chair dragged over next to the couch. The table lamp is next to him, now; and he’s flipping half absently, half curiously through a soft-cover book. It’s from the shelf behind him, one of Timothy’s texts from an elementary education course.

Timothy blinks and looks down. He’s got a couple of large towels tucked loosely around him. They’re from the cabinet next to the fridge. Clean. Tim must have put them there, not wanting to fuck around in Timothy’s bedroom looking for a blanket.

Tim must have taken the chair to give him space after he fell asleep, Timothy realizes; and he must have made a sound, because when he looks up again, Tim is looking at him, fingers still on the pages of the book.

Timothy is screwed. “This is bullshit,” he rasps, wrenching to his feet. His mouth tastes like something shit itself and died in it. He marches over to the tiny sink by the tiny bathroom and grabs his toothbrush.

He’s only got spearmint toothpaste, the kind that makes his tongue burn bitter and turns his gums slightly numb. He’s grateful for it now.

When he sticks his toothbrush back in its mug and turns around, Tim is halfway out the door.

“Where are you going?” Timothy asks. His head is cool, now, and his thoughts are running in straight lines; but he can’t figure out why Tim is —

“Airport,” Tim says. “Gotta be there in forty-five. This was good, though, huh? Didn’t think you’d pass out that fast from shitty beer.”

Timothy doesn’t bother dignifying that with a reply. He’s staring at the crease between Tim’s eyebrows, and that’s where his gaze stays, the first few steps he takes towards him.

Tim steps all the way back into the apartment and shuts the door.

Timothy doesn’t crowd him, but he thinks about it. He thinks about pushing in close with his hands on either side of Tim’s face; and then Tim is kissing him, and his mouth is hot, and his lips are gentle, and his teeth are not.

And then Timothy is grinning, because Tim tucked him in to sleep with towels, from the kitchen cupboard, _towels_ , Tim, really? And Tim is calling him an asshole and then they’re kissing again, and there’s a surging joy and relief that knocks the paranoia right out of Timothy, through the window into the street, where any early-bird nosy neighbors could go fuck themselves, because Tim’s mouth is magic and his hips are magic and Timothy had half-forgotten _this_ — this spark. He’s aces at smothering it, and even better at disguising it with icy stares at any sign of discovery; but he and Tim are digging themselves out of layers of that shit, easy, easy.

Until they have to stop. Until Tim has to go, touching his swollen curved mouth with his knuckles as he does.

(When Tim comes back, he’s back for good. The day he’s out of the Army is the day he starts spending a truly excessive amount of time at Timothy’s apartment, until Timothy starts feeling like something’s missing when he isn’t there.

Until Timothy shoves him a little against the counter one day, and grins down at him, and asks him if he wants to do this for real.

Not terribly long afterwards, Timothy is deployed to Iraq. The world is funny like that.)

 

_Iraq, April 2003_

 

Mail call rolls around soon after Bravo Company makes it to Baghdad.

“Rudy, motherfucker,” Espera’s saying. “Hasser upgraded, so you thought you would too, huh? Steal his thunder?”

Reyes looks up. He’s grinning from ear to ear. “Brother, explain to me how I could’ve had anything to do with this,” he says. “Sheree’s maybe tryna get one up on Walt’s girl, how should I know? But that depends on how he responds, doesn’t it?

Poke is incredulous. “Have you seen Hasser’s face?” he demands. “That boy’s spent the last ten minutes forgetting everything we done out here. A girl makes you feel like that, you stick with her as long as she wants you around.”

Reyes’s grin softens into a smile. “You’re gonna piss off Manimal _and_ Brad, Tony,” he says. “You wanna keep talking like that, maybe go talk to Reporter, huh?”

Poke snorts. “Maybe I will. Congratulations, brother.” He slaps Reyes on the shoulder and trudges off.

Doc’s mouth tugs up at the corners as he looks at Reyes. “Upgrade, huh?” he asks. “Thought you were already engaged?”

“Naw,” Reyes says. “I mean, we talked about it, but it wasn’t the right time.”

“And the middle of a war is?” It’s not nasty — it’s a genuine question.

Reyes shrugs. “I was thinking about it, back at Mathilda,” he says. “I guess Sheree was thinking about it back home, too. I’d probably have asked her the minute we got back. She just beat me to the punch.”

Doc shakes his head. “Whatever works for you crazy kids, I guess,” he says.

Reyes raises his eyebrows, looking back down at his letter. “Amen, Doc,” he says. “You haven’t said a word about yours, though.”

“Hmm?”

“Your letters.” Reyes gestures. “Almost everyone’s talking shit but you, seems like. Not much to complain about?”

“Naw,” Doc says.

“Good, that’s good.”

Doc hasn’t even opened the envelope. Someone shoved it into his hand while he was talking to Baptista, and he’s been holding onto it absently for the past several minutes. It could be from his mother, uncle, one of his cousins — it could be Tim. (It’s probably not Tim.)

(It is Tim.)

He can tell even before he reads it; as soon as he rips open the top of the envelope and pulls out the papers and sees the handwriting, he knows it’s Tim, and he can’t help the way his own expression changes like a burst of sunshine.

“Your girl write you?”

It’s Hasser, carrying what appears to be a large stash of baby wipes toward the command vehicle. He’s grinning so wide his face looks stretched. It’s — nice. It’s a stark contrast to yesterday, or even to half an hour ago. _Person_ looks glum compared to him.

(Then again, Person has been uncharacteristically silent lately. Doc would put money on that being the result of the fuzzy, disorienting shock of finally being in Baghdad as much as it is Ripped Fuel withdrawal.)

“Yeah,” Doc says, after a moment. “Congratulations, man. Figures that all of you dumb grunts’ girlfriends only feel like marrying you when you’re gone, but it’s still sweet.”

Hasser, if possible, grins even harder. “Uh huh,” he says. “Sure fuckin’ is. Looks like you’ve got some good news there too, yeah?”

Doc looks down at the letter and sees _fucking miss you, I’d say I wished I was there but that sure as hell is not the truth_.

It’s half-drunk chicken scratch. He starts smiling again despite himself.

“No,” he says. “It’s just good to hear from back home.”

“Sure fuckin’ is,” Hasser says again, and heads off.

“Where the hell d’you get those?” Doc calls after him.

“What, the baby wipes?” Hasser says over his shoulder. “Lilley told me ‘don’t ask me, and I won’t tell,’ so I’m taking that to mean he took some dick for ’em, I dunno.”

Doc allows himself a long, hard, bone-deep satisfying eye-roll.

 

_Headed stateside, late 2003_

 

Timothy finds himself sitting next to Ray on the long-awaited flight back to the US of A.

Ray’s still quiet, but he’s steady instead of slow, sitting straight and alert.

“How’re you feeling?” Timothy asks.

It’s more out of habit than anything. Ray rarely responded to that question seriously in Iraq. Timothy had gotten used to “fucking hot”, “fucking horny”, the occasional inane, half-mocking “oo-rah”, and, lately, a silent shrug.

This time, though, Ray leans back and answers the question.

“Decent, I guess,” he says. His voice is rough. “Can’t wait for a long shower. Can’t wait to walk around barefoot. Can’t wait to go to Disneyland with my girlfriend.”

 _What?_ “You’ve got a girlfriend?”

Ray stares at him. Timothy realizes, belatedly, that there was probably a little too much shock in that question.

“Uh, yeah,” Ray says. “I’ve mentioned her before, haven’t I?”

“No,” Timothy says. “Mostly you just talk about sex. In general. I tend to tune it out.”

Ray makes a face and shrugs. “Can you blame me, homes? Surrounded by men for months, you get a little bored, you get a little desperate.”

His tone is casual, but the words are oddly measured, like he’s trying not to say something else.

“Yeah,” Timothy says automatically. He’s staring, he realizes. He jerks his eyes away, over to Brad, who’s sleeping in a seat across the aisle next to Tony.

When he looks at Ray again, Ray is looking back, intently.

“Besides,” Ray says, and stops.

“Yeah?”

“You never talk about your girl, either,” Ray says.

He’s still talking in that strange, cautious way. It’s familiar, somehow. Like a language Timothy learned to speak a long, long time ago. Like a puzzle piece finding a fit.

“What makes you think I have one?” Timothy asks carefully.

“Walt told me.”

“Is Walt the battalion gossip now?” Timothy says.

“Naw,” Ray says earnestly. “He’s just a — a willing conductor in the Underground Railroad of very, very pertinent information that gets passed among the battalion, officers excluded. You know.”

“Underground Railroad,” Timothy says flatly.

Ray’s lips twitch.

Timothy steals another glance at Brad and Tony. Still conked out. Neither will be awake for hours.

“You’re dodging the question,” Ray says.

“Yeah, so?”

“Yeah, _so?_ ” Ray parrots.

It’s not mean-spirited, but the way Ray is looking at Timothy is making him _itch_ , like sand sticking to bare skin, uncomfortable and exposed. “Don’t ask me about my girlfriend,” Timothy snaps.

Ray’s mouth closes on half-formed words, a line of hurt appearing between his eyebrows. It reminds Timothy of —

Fuck.

He softens his voice when he speaks again.

“Don’t ask me about my girlfriend,” he says, measured, “because I won’t _tell_.”

Timothy almost laughs, directly after, loud and inappropriate, because it’s the first time he’s done this — come _out_ , effectively, in his situation; and this is how it happens. A casual play on words, a single breath’s worth of sound expelled in about four seconds flat. His stomach clenches.

He reaches abruptly for his water bottle, trying to steady his hands. Small sips. He’s not prepared for the ragging he’d get for throwing up on a plane.

It doesn’t take long for him to calm the fuck down and turn to look Ray in the eye again.

“Understand?”

“Oh, I understand,” Ray says. He’s grinning from ear to ear, and Timothy can’t help it when his own mouth tugs into a helpless smile.

“I’m sure you do,” he says. “Bored and desperate, huh?”

Ray shrugs expansively. “So, maybe not bored,” he says. His voice goes soft and hesitant, like he’s half-forgotten how to use it for the moment. “A, uh. A little desperate.”

Timothy’s not sure how to respond to that. But Ray’s still smiling, if a little crookedly, so Timothy just reaches out and gives his shoulder a quick squeeze. “Hey, you got Disneyland,” he offers.

“I got Disneyland,” Ray agrees. “And showers. And groceries. And fuckin’ dishes to wash. And a girlfriend. She’s kind of a badass.”

“Yeah? What does she do?”

“What? Oh, uh — social work,” Ray says.

“Like shrink social work, or school social work? Or both?”

“Um. Neither? Like, medical shit, helping people get healthcare.”

“Badass,” Timothy concedes. “Mine’s pretty kickass, too.”

Ray squints at him. “Can I ask, now that you’ve told me that?”

“Fuck no,” Timothy says.

“ _Fine_. Fuck, seriously? I’m going to show up at your place while you’re gone one of these days, do some recon on your kitchen sink.”

“Have fun,” Timothy says dryly. “And remember that anyone who’s dating me is guaranteed to be as big of an asshole as I am.”

Ray’s delighted laughter sinks into Timothy’s skin, and he settles back, letting the hum of the plane engine sing some of the heaviness from his shoulders.

**Author's Note:**

> . . . I feel like now is a good time to mention that I have verifiably not seen more than around an episode and a half, tops, of Justified. Interactions directly involving Tim Gutterson were written using the classic “read the wiki page and hope” method! (I’ll probably have to, you know, _actually watch the show_ before writing anything else in this universe.)
> 
> Personal and deployment timelines may also be a little bit fudged, at least in Tim Gutterson’s case.
> 
> All named individuals in this fanfiction (aside from Tim Gutterson!) are fictional constructs based on characters from the HBO miniseries Generation Kill as portrayed by actors, and should not be associated with the existing Marines represented in Evan Wright's Generation Kill. I acknowledge the unavoidable ethical complications in publicly posting RPF inspired by this piece of media, and may at any point choose to take down this work, without prior warning, if it should become necessary.


End file.
